Marston Holdings certified for UK Digital Identity framework by BSI

Marston Holdings has become the first company certified by business improvement firm BSI to comply with the UK Digital Identity & Attributes Trust Framework (DIATF) standards.

BSI is part of the government’s pilot certification scheme to allow identity service providers to become accredited to certify against the framework. Marston Holdings, on the other hand, is one of the UK’s largest transportation and enforcement services companies.

“Achieving certification to the UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework provides clients with the assurance that they will receive a safe and streamlined digital identification experience,” explains Frank Lee, UK & I product certification director at BSI.

“As more and more organizations leverage digital identities and related technology, we expect the demand for the scheme to grow, and we look forward to working with many more digital identity service providers in the future to achieve certification.”

BSI is one of only five certification bodies under UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service) offering the certification. The framework and pilot certification scheme launch come months after the UK announced its intent to allow employers and landlords to use certified digital identity service providers (IDSPs) to carry out identity checks on their behalf.

“Marston Holdings is delighted to be the first business to be accredited to the UK Digital Identity & Attributes Trust Framework by BSI,” comments Craig Scott, group operations director (BPO) at Marston Holdings.

“As a pioneering business within the identity document verification industry and as a market leader in providing clients with a fully managed right to work and background screening service, the accreditation provided by BSI to Marston Holdings helps identify us as a trusted partner to both our current and future clients.”

DIATF still a ‘work in progress’: Tony Blair Institute says

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has published a new blog post, highlighting the limitation of current digital ID projects in the UK and calling for a centralization of these technologies.

Written by Kirsty Innes, director of the Institute’s digital government unit and Antonio Weiss, digital transformation and public services expert, the article suggests that the last two governments in the UK abandoned some of GDS‘ most valuable projects.

“The Verify function was an ambitious effort to provide a means for UK citizens to prove claims about themselves in a wide range of public and private sector contexts,” reads the post.

“But it ran into the sand due to lack of political backing, to be replaced with One Login for Government for public services, and the Digital ID Trust Framework for the private sector — both still works in progress.”

According to the identity experts, a solid digital ID infrastructure also requires challenging long-held beliefs and providing various infrastructural services to citizens.

“A combination of digital identity and smart contracts technologies could safely and securely deposit urgently needed monies to citizens the minute a new policy is enacted,” write Innes and Weiss.

“This would require political champions for such new approaches, and explaining why new technologies for digital identity are often safer and more secure than the current, siloed and paper-based model.”

The Institute’s executives mentioned Estonia and Austria as examples where these new approaches to digital identity are being deployed successfully.

“But in order to deliver this value to citizens, government institutions need to be able to seamlessly and securely share data amongst themselves. The UK’s lack of a functioning digital ID is hampering efforts to do this.”

Article Topics

biometrics  |  certification  |  digital identity  |  Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework (DIATF)  |  identity verification  |  IDSP  |  Tony Blair Institute  |  UK  |  UK GDPR